Why do we get tight?

“I have always been tight” is a statement I have heard more times than I can count, but what is behind this tightness and what is actually going on?

Tightness is adaption. You see we can’t stop adaption. It happens whether we like it or not. We are constantly adapting to our surroundings. Our body does not know we are going to the gym and lifting weights to look good. It simply receives a stimulus. The task at hand is very difficult and the way to make that task less demanding is to build more contractile tissue.

The same is true for flexibility issues. Many of us are now confined to our desk spaces. We spend hours, days, decades, in the same seated positions. Over time our body has adapted making us very efficient sitters. Unfortunately, being very good at sitting doesn’t not translate well into most other activities.

We perceive these as flexibility issues rather than understanding they are just a highly defined adaption pattern.